Quotes & Sayings About Algernon

If the public safety be provided, liberty and propriety secured, justice administered, virtue encouraged, vice suppressed, and the true interest of the nation advanced, the ends of government are accomplished ... — Algernon Sidney

Violence and fraud can create no right. — Algernon Sidney

For words divide and rend But silence is most noble till the end. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Thou has conquered, O pale Galilean. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

No right can come by conquest, unless there were a right of making that conquest. — Algernon Sidney

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

So Tristram looked on Iseult face to face
and knew not, and she knew not. The last time
The last that should be told in any rhyme
Heard anywhere on mouths of singing men
That ever should sing praise of them again;
The last hour of their hurtless hearts at rest,
The last that peace should touch them, breast to breast,
The last that sorrow far from them should sit,
This last was with them, and they knew not it. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read. — Oscar Wilde

My imagination requires a judicious rein; I am afraid to let it loose, for it carries me sometimes into appalling places beyond the stars and beneath the world. — Algernon Blackwood

When the hounds of Spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them. — Oscar Wilde

There may be a hundred thousand men in an army, who are all equally free; but they only are naturally most fit to be commanders or leaders, who most excel in the virtues required for the right performance of those offices. — Algernon Sidney

The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell upon me and shook me. Then I burst out laughing too. It was the only thing to do: and the sound of my laughter also made me understand his. The strain of physical pressure caused it
this explosion of unnatural laughter in both of us; it was an effort of repressed forces to seek relief; it was a temporary safety-valve. — Algernon Blackwood

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. -Algernon — Oscar Wilde

God leaves to Man the choice of Forms in Government; and those who constitute one Form, may abrogate it. — Algernon Sidney

When I hear that a friend has fallen into matrimony, I feel the same sorrow as if I had heard of his lapsing into theism. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I searched everywhere for a proof of reality, when all the while I understood quite well that the standard of reality had changed — Algernon Blackwood

Our way is where God knows
And Love knows where:
We are in Love's hand to-day. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Like many another materialist, that is, he lied cleverly on the basis of insufficient knowledge, because the knowledge supplied seemed to his own particular intelligence inadmissible.
("The Wendigo") — Algernon Blackwood

A baby's feet, like sea-shells pink Might tempt, should heaven see meet, An angel's lips to kiss, we think, A baby's feet. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Nor had I any illusions about Algernon Charles Swinburne, who often used to stop my perambulator when he met it on Nurses' Walk, at the edge of Wimbledon Common, and pat me on the head and kiss me: he was an inveterate pram-stopper and patter and kisser. — Robert Graves

I used to tell strange, wild, improbable tales akin to ghost stories, and discovered a taste for spinning yarns. — Algernon Blackwood

because what one thinks finds expression in words, and what one says, happens. — Algernon Blackwood

No blast of air or fire of sun Puts out the light whereby we run With girdled loins our lamplit race, And each from each takes heart of grace And spirit till his turn be done. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

And, with the dark, the Forest came up boldly and pressed against the very walls and windows, peering in upon them, joining hands above the slates and chimneys. — Algernon Blackwood

Not easily may an individual escape the deep slavery of the herd. — Algernon Blackwood

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran . — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Who will wear a shoe that hurts him, because the shoe-maker tells him 'tis well made? — Algernon Sidney

Before I met Maria, I was your basic craven hermit. I spent most of my time in my room, in love with my walls, hiding out from the world with my
fanzines and my records. I thought I was happier that way. I had developed these monastic habits to protect myself from something, probably, but
whatever it was, the monastic habits had turned into the bigger problem. In my headphones, I led a life of romance and incident and intrigue, none
of which had anything to do with the world outside my Walkman. I was an English major, obsessed with Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater and Algernon
Swinburne, thrilling to the exploits of my decadent aesthete poet idols, even though my only experience with decadence was reading about it. — Rob Sheffield

Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

All the world is bitter as a tear — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Untruthful! My nephew Algernon? Impossible! He is an Oxonian. — Oscar Wilde

Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever, Here and there for awhile would borrow Rest, if rest might haply deliver Sorrow ... — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Despair the twin-born of devotion. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Who knows but on their sleep may rise Such light as never heaven let through To lighten earth from Paradise? — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn. — Daniel Keyes

Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.
Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd. — Oscar Wilde

Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time? I wish to goodness you had let me know. I have been writing frantic letters to Scotland Yard about it. I was very nearly offering a large reward. Algernon. Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more than usually hard up. — Oscar Wilde

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without? — Algernon Charles Swinburne

His imagination conceived and bore - worlds; but nothing in these worlds became alive until he discovered its true and living name. The name was the breath of life; and, sooner or later, he invariably found it. — Algernon H. Blackwood

The sweetest flowers in all the world- A baby's hands. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

It was clear, however, that the woman had in herself some secret source of joy, that she was now an aggressive, positive force, sure of herself, and apparently afraid of nothing in heaven or hell. — Algernon Blackwood

We are not sure of sorrow; and joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man's lure. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Fear that makes faith may break faith. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Heart's ease of pansy, pleasure or thought, Which would the picture give us of these? Surely the heart that conceived it sought Heart's ease. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Mrs. Bittarcy rustled ominously, holding her peace meanwhile. She feared long words she did not understand. Beelzebub lay hid among too many syllables.
("The Man Whom The Trees Loved") — Algernon Blackwood

And so with all things: names were vital and important. — Algernon H. Blackwood

JACK
Your duty as a gentleman calls you back.
ALGERNON
My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree. — Oscar Wilde

Time stoops to no man's lure. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

[A]ll popular and well-mixed governments [republics] ... are ever established by wise and good men, and can never be upheld otherwise than by virtue: The worst men always conspiring against them, they must fall, if the best have not power to preserve them ... [and] unless they be preserved in a great measure free from vices ... — Algernon Sidney

Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that. — Oscar Wilde

O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,
That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?
My heart is harmless as my life's first day:
Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her
Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free; love me no more, but love my love of thee. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

If you were Queen of pleasure
And I were King of pain
We'd hunt down Love together,
Pluck out his flying-feather,
And teach his feet a measure,
And find his mouth a rein;
If you were Queen of pleasure
And I were King of pain. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

White rose in red rose-garden Is not so white; Snowdrops, that plead for pardon And pine for fright Because the hard East blows Over their maiden vows, Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

For till the thunder and trumpet be,
Soul may divide from body, but not we
One from another — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal; Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

For beauty was her accident, and while admirable, was not a determining factor. — Algernon Blackwood

For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,/ All waters as the shore. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

JACK: Yes, but said yourself that a severe chill was not hereditary.
ALGERNON: It usen't to be, I know - but I daresay it is now. Science is always making wonderful improvements in things. — Oscar Wilde

O brother, the gods were good to you.
Sleep, and be glad while the world
endures.
Be well content as the years wear
through;
Give thanks for life, and the loves and
lures;
Give thanks for life, O brother, and
death,
For the sweet last sound of her feet, her
breath,
For gifts she gave you, gracious and
few,Tears and kisses, that lady of yours. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Like a forest rose the huge peaks above the slumbering village, measuring the night and heavens. They beckoned him. And something born of the snowy desolation, born of the midnight and silent grandeur, born of the great listening hollows of the night, something that lay 'twixt terror and wonder, dropped from the vast wintry spaces down into his heart
and called him. Very softly, unrecorded in any word or thought his brain could compass, it laid its spell upon him. Fingers of snow brushed the surface of his heart. The power and quiet majesty of the winter's night appalled him ...
-The Glamour of the Snow — Algernon Blackwood

It is the little things that pierce and burn and prick for years to come. — Algernon Blackwood

For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon. Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that? Lane. I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. Algernon. — Oscar Wilde

To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any great painter or musician, is a possession added to the best things of life. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Liars need to have good memories. — Algernon Sidney

Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day that we die. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

If his Majesty is resolved to have my head, he may make a whistle of my arse if he pleases. — Algernon Sidney

A general presumption that Icings will govern well, is not a sufficient security to the People ... those who subjected themselves to the will of a man were governed by a beast. — Algernon Sidney

The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy. — Algernon Sidney

Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Fate is a sea without a shore, and the soul is a rock that abides. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon is a pleasant companion. At mealtimes, he takes his place at the small gateleg table. He likes pretzels, and today he took a sip of beer while we watched the ballgame on TV. I think he rooted for the Yankees. — Daniel Keyes

The loneliness of the place had entered our very bones, and silence seemed natural, for after a bit the sound of our voices became a trifle unreal and forced; whispering would have been the fitting mode of communication, I felt, and the human voice, always rather absurd amid the roar of the elements, now carried with it something almost illegitimate. It was like talking out loud in church, or in some place where it was not lawful, perhaps not quite safe, to be overheard. — Algernon Blackwood

For the worst is this after all; if they knew me, not a soul upon earth would pity me. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Cecily: "Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare"
Algernon: "They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in."
Cecily: "Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about. — Oscar Wilde

Simpson, the student of divinity, it was who arranged his conclusions probably with the best, though not most scientific, appearance of order. Out there, in the heart of unreclaimed wilderness, they had surely witnessed something crudely and essentially primitive. Something that had survived somehow the advance of humanity had emerged terrifically, betraying a scale of life monstrous and immature. He envisaged it rather as a glimpse into prehistoric ages, when superstitions, gigantic and uncouth, still oppressed the hearts of men: when the forces of nature were still untamed, the Powers that may have haunted a primeval universe not yet withdrawn. To this day he thinks of what he termed years later in a sermon 'savage and formidable Potencies lurking behind the souls of men, not evil perhaps in themselves, yet instinctively hostile to humanity as it exists.'
("The Wendigo") — Algernon Blackwood

All the nations they had to deal with, had the same fate. — Algernon Sidney

But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart
Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

It is, of course, extremely interesting to look back across the years questioningly, wonderingly, objectively, without detachments, though seeing "objectively" does not necessarily imply seeing truthfully. — Algernon Blackwood

Why am I always looking at life through a window? — Daniel Keyes

I wish we were dead together to-day,
Lost sight of, hidden away out of sight,
Clasped and clothed in the cloven clay,
Out of the world's way, out of the light,
Out of the ages of worldly weather, Forgotten of all men altogether,
As the world's first dead, taken wholly away,
Made one with death, filled full of the night. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility! Jack. That wouldn't be at all a bad thing. Algernon. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't try it. You should leave that to people who haven't been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. — Oscar Wilde

JACK.
I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.
ALGERNON.
We have.
JACK.
I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?
ALGERNON.
The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course.
JACK.
What fools! — Oscar Wilde

Three blind mice ... three blind mice, See how they run, See how they runt
They all run after the farmer's wife, She cut oft their tails with a carving
knife, Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three ... blind ... mice? — Daniel Keyes

Marvellous mercies and infinite love. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The loves and hours of the life of a man,
They are swift and sad, being born of the sea. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very vivid; for the wanderer, especially, camps have their "note" either of welcome or rejection. — Algernon Blackwood

The half-brained creature to whom books are other than living things may see with the eyes of a bat and draw with the fingers of a mole his dullard's distinction between books and life: those who live the fuller life of a higher animal than he know that books are to poets as much part of that life as pictures are to painters or as music is to musicians, dead matter though they may be to the spiritually still-born children of dirt and dullness who find it possible and natural to live while dead in heart and brain. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Though one were fair as roses His beauty clouds and closes. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

There is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I will go back to the great sweet mother,
Mother and lover of men, the sea.
I will go down to her, I and none other,
Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me.
Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast;
O fair white mother, in days long passed
Born without sister, born without brother,
Set free my soul as thy soul is free. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. (Algernon in The Importance of Being Ernest) — Oscar Wilde